Heinlein quote for almost any circumstance.
I've met only two of the big-time Sci-Fi authors. One was RAH, the other was Isaac Asimov. Two polar opposite impressions.
Mr. Heinlein wasn't the Dean of science fiction for all those years for nothing. He wrote the seminal version of almost every science fiction basic theme, and created most of the genre from whole cloth, well before 1955. RAH anticipated an awful lot of today's technology, 40 or more years before it was created. The man really was a wonder; a true genius and a visionary of extraordinary breadth and depth.
Pretty derned good engineer, too. Several inventions to his credit, or at least the ideas behind them. Described electronic drafting boards, microwave cooking, waterbeds, and the remote motion-repeating manipulator devices that are still to this day named after the story he wrote about them. See, "Waldoes," from the story, "Waldo" which is usually found in one volume with the other novella, "Magic, Incorporated." Just to name a few odds and ends.
Heck of a nice guy, too, if you didn't trip his BS meter.
Heaven help you if you did. And he didn't believe in Heaven, so you were pretty much SOL.
Something quite a bit less than half an hour with Mr. Heinlein was all I managed, while I was stationed in Monterey, CA.; he lived down the road a piece, in Carmel, CA, and I happened to notice him in one of the parks when I was in that burgh. The uniform I was wearing at the time got me the few minutes conversation, they were waiting for dinner reservations, arrived early by mistake or on purpose; it was a beautiful evening in Carmel in the park watching the sun set on the ocean.
Once I told him I was from fairly near his native Butler, MO, he allowed that young and foolish NCO's could be worth chatting with, and might have a useful place in the Universe....Even if they were from the other ("wrong") bank of the Mississippi. I found him to be quite gracious. A real old-fashioned gentleman, for a crotchety bald-headed old coot (a self-description).
And if you liked red-heads, his wife Virginia was quite nice to look at as well, even in her late 60's or early 70's (at a guess).
Never got the chance to chat with her at all, to my probable detriment. According to Robert H., she was really the brains of their outfit, and I don't think he was trying to flatter his wife when he said it. (I doubt that flattery worked on her, anyway. Just a hunch.)
Unlike Isaac Asimov, who after hearing him in NYC, where he tore a strip off the hide of a young lady - for nothing and no good reason other than he was profanely sick and tired of "Fans" - AT A CON HOTEL! Granted, he was not there for the convention, but honestly, he could have just said no, busy, ANYTHING except insult this poor kid so badly she ran off crying when the elevator door opened. She only wanted a book signed, she had just bought one of his "Robot" series books; hard-bound, too, which was money in his pocket. And we were in an elevator, for pity's sake, what was he going to do with that few seconds that he couldn't sign a stinking book? Not like there's a lot to do in an elevator, anyway. Scribble-scribble, scram, later kid, ya bother me... But no, he got all nasty and insulting instead. What a pig.
So within those two minutes Asimov managed to convince me to burn all the books I owned by him, and never read or buy another word from his typewriter ever again. And I did get to tell him so before I got out of the elevator car. Rude, nasty, hateful, just an icky person with a massive chip on his shoulder. And that was the best of the impression I got from him in those less-than two minutes. Thirty years later and I still don't have anything by Asimov in the house.
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